Glimpses
by AbominableDante
Summary: A collection of vignettes in Brad Crawford's point of view.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **This is a series of vignettes I wrote in Brad Crawford's perspective. There is no particular order to them, so you, the reader, may get the feel of how I believe his mind works; as one frame of a scene after the other, rather like a jumble of visions you could say.

The dates are put up their for your convenience, so you may easily keep track of when the scene is taking place. This could be before, during or after the series. It is based on the idea that the series runs in the year 1995.

Some scenes are long, some scenes are short, again, there is no order.

I hope you enjoy this enough to review.

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**Warning: **Language, mild sensuality, mention or use of drugs, violence.

**Disclaimer: **I do not claim to own anything mentioned here that appears in Weiss Kruze. I also do not claim continuity with the anime/manga/audio recordings.

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**Glimpses**

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**1**

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**1995 A.D.**

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"Don't you dare say 'I told you so'!"

"I wasn't going to." I was picking my fingernails with my pocketknife.

"I can _hear_ you thinking it! Stop thinking it!" Schuldig snapped back, blue eyes on fire. Well, only one was on fire, the other was sporting a livid bruise and was nearly swelled entirely shut. A damn shame Takatori had abused his sighting eye; he wouldn't be able to conduct field work for weeks.

"And it's your fault! God, did you have to let him hit me that hard?!"

"It was to make a point. After the second time you screwed up, I figured some punishment was due. Learned your lesson?" I sneered at him, leaning back in my desk chair.

Schuldig snorted and leaned forward, placing his thin hands palm down on the top of my desk to support him as he came closer into my space. He was smiling, his smug little grin, but I was winning. I was right, he was wrong. It was surprisingly simple. And he was at a loss for words, I could tell by the implied threat in his stance.

I picked at my nails, flicking the dirt I scraped out from under them onto the floor. He looked down at my hands and grimaced. His own nails were scrubbed clean, always carefully maintained shells on the tips of his fingers. He had time to bother with them while I did not. Unlike some people, I worked.

He caught my last thought, his mind skimming the surface of my guarded thoughts. He growled and shoved himself off my desk, turning and leaving the room in a huff.

"There's fresh ice in the freezer," I called after him. I caught him flipping me an intricate, probably insulting gesture as he marched down the hall and forced myself not to laugh.

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_**Fin Chapter 1**_

_**Please Review**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes: **Here's an update. Just as a head's up, Schuldig is about 15 in this chapter.

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**2**

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**1988 A.D.**

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"I hate you hair like that, you look sleazy," the redheaded teenager muttered at me from the bed his was lounging on. It was spotless in my room, and here he was, unwelcome, uninvited, fucking it up. I glared at his reflection in the mirror, meeting his impassive eyes. 

"I'm not exactly trying to look clean-cut and wholesome, here. I don't think I'd ever get any business if I did." I had no idea why I was explaining this to him. He already knew I lived and breathed for the job, my hair was really only a minor counterpoint to it. He shrugged and sidled up behind me, leaning into the mirror and picking at his own feathery hair, blowing a kiss at himself, vain as ever.

"Course not, but you don't have to look like a complete slimeball. I think you look really sexy and dangerous with your hair all mussed. Just don't comb it when you get up in the morning."

"Another word for that is 'disheveled', which is another look I'm trying to avoid." As if it wasn't obvious, with my pale three-piece suits. I was the only man I knew who still bothered wearing a vest, but I couldn't help feeling only half-dressed without it. There was a certain class that came with the vest in a three-piece suit, an old-time air that made it easier for my clients to relax around me, to see me as more than just a grunt for hire. I was more than just a killer…There was a certain amount of con artistry that came with my career…

"You look like Atticus Finch," Schuldig laughed, counting likenesses on his fingers, "Glasses, black hair, three-piece suit…"

"When did you read that book?" I asked as I tried ineffectively to get a piece of my bangs to stay where I put it, but it kept springing back into my face.

"It was on your reading list, remember? I had nothing else to do after you shot the television."

"Then I scared the landlord of a justifiable reason," I murmured back, sighing. I had to be satisfied with this, though I thought perhaps I looked like I was trying to overreach myself. I looked very young still, but that look would leave soon enough. I could already see myself as what I would be just four, five, six years from now…Years, lit and out like matches in their swiftness.

"Anyway, we going or what?" Schuldig was bouncing next to me, two feet shorter than me, but not for long. He was growing still, barely sixteen, and grinned like a killer. It was a shame they'd cut his hair so short, it was taking forever to grow back. Once he had it to the right length he'd look like the perfect red-haired demon he was.

"Little hellion," I muttered and headed out. Schuldig whooped behind me and followed.

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_Fin Chapter 2_

_Please Review_

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**Author's Notes: **In other news, I saw Sweeney Todd last weekend. A very good play, one I would recommend to anyone. I need to go and buy the soundtrack so I can sing the full songs on the bus and really mess people up. 

The 'Atticus Finch' reference is from Harper Lee's book, To Kill A Mockingbird.

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**To My Readers: **

**Rori Barton**: (smile) It's good to hear from you again. I'm very glad you liked my portrayal of Brad Crawford.

People have issues with him (I can't say why) having emotions, probably because they got most of their information from fandom and not from watching the anime. I haven't watched the entire thing myself, but I do have a variation of sources which told me that while he hides them from his employers and from Esset, he does have the ability to smile, frown, get angry, slap people around, and the like. I like him, he's a complex guy and a challenge to write for. You shall be seeing more of those emotions later, I promise.

**eva84: **Thank you.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes: **Sorry for the delay. I've been dealing with…shit. Math class and homework, disappearing friends, and this eye-twitching moodiness. I'll get around to posting more later.

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**3**

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**1989 A.D.**

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"Tell me again why we need to be in this godforsaken country?"

"I didn't think you'd be the type of person who reveled in that kind of patriotism," I mumbled back as the taxi drove us to our hotel, "Fat, obnoxious people with guns. And I figured you'd be happy to leave America…"

"You speak like that about your own people, Brad? I don't think your mummy would be happy about that," Schuldig giggled. I glared at him as best I could without turning my head. My neck hurt like crazy.

"I'm sure she'd be flipping in her grave," was my grim reply.

"Still doesn't answer my question. Why are we here?"

"Job opportunities."

"But it's fucking cold!"

"That's why I told you to buy a coat. Get over it."

"We're here, sirs."

I nodded to the driver and stiffly got out of the taxi, narrowly dodging a fast-moving car. I shivered once, and then quelled all urges to let it continue as I lifted part of our luggage out of the taxi's trunk as Schuldig paid the driver. I handed him two suitcases when he appeared next to me and motioned to the apartment complex. There was no doorman to help us, but that was fine by me. I was edgy enough right now to let some stranger touch our things.

We hauled our lives up three flights of stairs to a door with flaking blue paint, and I picked a key that had been mailed to me earlier out of my pocket. I had to push with my whole side to get the door to budge, then it crashed in. I wiped my hands off on my pants and looked around at the dusty, bare apartment. Schuldig poked around, his nose scrunched up in distaste. I threw our suitcases on the only bed and sat down with a sigh.

"I've seen dog live in better hovels than this. Christ, Brad, who did you piss off this time?!" Schuldig shouted from the bathroom. I heard him turn on the tap and make a disgusted sound. "The water's brown!"

"What, you want to go to Middle East instead? I got to choose between here and there from Esset, but they'll always take more field agents there. Nice little war they've got going, we'll be shot in the first three days."

He peered at me from around the bathroom door, his look pointedly devious.

"Prediction or sarcasm?"

"Why else would I pick Russia? Not for the love of it, to be sure," I muttered as I picked lint off my shirtsleeve. He sighed and flopped down on the bed next to me, looking defeated with his shoulder-length hair falling in front of his face.

"What're we supposed to do here?" he muttered, "I mean, we're only half a team, right? There can't be much we can do."

"Same thing we always do, of course. Cheer up, it's only a year. We'll move somewhere nicer after our sentence here. And once we get our third member we'll be able to pick and choose our placement…assuming we don't' fuck anything up between now and then. They're still unsure about our loyalty."

"You mean my loyalty, right?"

"They'll stop testing us soon enough. We'll be one of Esset's most trusted teams in less than a decade, I'm sure of it."

Schuldig smiled, his thin face nearly swallowed by the hugeness of the expression. For such a small boy, his emotions and movements were always so large I always thought he'd burst.

"I'm not a boy, Brad, nearly eighteen," he gloated, having read my thoughts. I laughed, twisting my neck from side to side to force the muscles there to relax. I must've slept on my neck wrong on the flight here…

"Yes, but comparatively, you're quite young."

"Bah, six years is hardly an age difference. I knew a couple once where the man was in his eighties and the woman was barely hitting thirty. It was disgusting."

I felt an eyebrow rise without my permission, and then huffed a laugh. That _was_ kind of sickening.

"What about that Playboy guy, Hefner?" I countered, "He's got to be at least a hundred and yet barely legal girls flock to him…"

"Ew!" he snorted.

"Humankind is marvelously perverse," I muttered and took my glasses off to clean them on the corner of my shirt, "Of all people you should be used to that."

"It's still gross…"

I laughed, but pretended I was coughing on the dust instead.

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_Fin Chapter 3_

_Please Review_

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**To My Readers:**

**Katzchenkitty:** He kind of does look like Atticus Finch…

But wasn't it a rifle? (runs off to check)

**Rori Barton**Well…Schuldig is kind of irritating. (smile) I'm sure half of Brad wants to haul off and smack him sometimes.

Anyway, thank you.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes: **I am posting so I don't have to do math homework… Such a shame too, it isn't even hard…

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**4**

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**1994 A.D.**

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I grit my teeth, glaring at myself in the mirror as I shaved. I was pretending that I didn't see that thing on my temple, bright against my black hair. I was almost done shaving, looking away long enough to rinse my razor of hair and foam, when Schuldig pranced in.

"What, you can knock?" I snarled, my foul mood already firmly in place from sight of my own reflection. He hummed some horrible pop song and plucked his toothbrush out of the cup by the sink. I watched him as he brushed his teeth, feeling slightly uncomfortable and cold, fresh out of a shower and only wearing the towel around my waist. I knew this hotel was going to be a problem with the two of us sharing a bathroom…I desperately missed our old apartment where I'd at least had a private master bath.

He finished and leaning in to spit and smile at himself in the mirror, checking to see if he missed any plaque. Satisfied, his blue eyes focused on me and he all but leered. I frowned and shooed him out of the way to finish shaving, nicking myself on the chin and swearing. He stepped back and shrugged, still grinning like a maniac.

"Hey, Brad?" he cooed at me, standing on his toes so he could set his chin on my shoulder, staring at our reflections.

"What?" I growled as I wiped my face off and rubbed antiseptic into my freshly bleeding cut.

"Is that a gray hair?"

He laughed and ran from the bathroom faster than I could catch him. If I had a gun I might've shot him. He said exactly what I didn't want to head first thing the morning…

"Fuck you!"

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_Fin Chapter 4_

_Please Review_

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**To My Readers: **

**Rori Barton**Trust me, he won't be cold for long. Thanks for reviewing!

**eva84: **Thank you, I'm glad I'm keeping to their personalities.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Notes: **For some reason the comments I received on another fic I wrote seemed a little left-handed…I was glad to get them, but it entertained me that just about all of them had some kind of clause. Anyway, they weren't flames and they were all truthful identifications for my omissions from cannon, so I was happy all the same.

And now, I am going to avoid homework by watching Monty Python.

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**Glimpses 5**

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**1992 A. D.**

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I snatched my tee shirt out of Schuldig's hands, sending him a nasty look as I folded it and set it with the others in the basket. He made a whining sound at me, bent on snapping my last nerve. He'd been trying to all day, I was sure of it, and being forced to drag out our entire wardrobes and cart them to the Laundromat was probably part of this malicious plot he'd concocted. 

"Braaad!" he moaned, as if he was going to start crying at any moment. Him, a grown man, crying; I'd never heard of such ridiculousness.

"Shut up and fold your damn clothes, Schuldig."

"But yours smell nicer!"

"We washed all of them with the same detergent," I growled, "You sound like a sissy."

"Just because you're made out of ice doesn't mean other men can't cry." He sneered at me, as if I was the one who was catching the attention of the people around us. Apparently they'd never seen two men bickering over the laundry. Schuldig lifted a pair of pants, also mine, to his nose and sniffed at it demonstratively. I really wished he wasn't making eyes at me with his nose in the crotch of my pants while six or seven disapproving, motherly faces watched us with disgust.

"Stop that!" I snapped, grabbing my pants and everything else that was mine and balling it all up into my basket.

"Your shirts will get wrinkled like that."

I sighed and rubbed at my eyes under my glasses, trying hard not to bludgeon my partner with the nearest box of powder detergent or stab him with a coat hanger. The only thing stopping me was the idea that I'd have to pick another telepath to replace him and that would fuck everything up. I had to deal with him…but not without a few more cups of coffee and a locking door between us.

Maybe I could lock myself in Farfarello's cell for a while, I'm sure he wouldn't mind. He seemed in a generous, saner mood this morning at breakfast…

"Ooo, that's what we should've washed, his straight jackets. They must reek by now," Schuldig said, gleefully folding his outlandish clothing into his basket as if he had no idea that I was counting ways to kill him as he spoke.

I was up to thirteen…He was grinning, but not at me.

"Make him do it then," I sighed, "They're his clothes anyway."

"Yeah, he likes laundry, said it was something about the smell and how everything's warm when it comes out of the drier."

"He's obviously never felt the unaltered joy of putting his face on a hot zipper…" I murmured sardonically, shoving my glasses up my nose and leaning against the drier next to the one Schuldig was still dragging clothes out of. How many shirts did he have?! Schuldig laughed and knotted a pair of socks together.

"Childhood trauma, Brad?"

"Worst there is," I shot back.

"Poor baby," he purred and dropped his last item into his basket, then followed me out, toward our apartment.

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_Fin Chapter 5_

_Please Review_

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**Author's Notes: **(singing) Always look on the bright side of life…(dances)

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**To My Readers:**

**eva84: **(smile) Just wait until Crawford shoots him in the ass…

**Rori Barton**Of course he won't. How could he have any fun if he did?

**fullmetalguitar**This chapter isn't quite as short. ;;; Thanks for reviewing! It's good to hear from you again.

**Psychodahlia**Let's see you act mature when you begin graying. (smile) I know I won't. I'll dye my hair green the moment I see one. I'm doing well, thanks.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes: **Guess who has incense and sprinkles? That's right, me.

Yeah, so I just got back home from spending a week at my aunt's in Virginia. It was nice, the week, and it's even better that I'm escaping to Otakon tomorrow evening. I'm going for all three days, and I'm dressing as Midget Brad Crawford and L. I'm so excited! Three days parties only happen once a year for me. (grin)

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**Glimpses 6**

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**1990 A. D.**

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There was no love between us, just a nice little friendship where we were comfortable enough to sit and enjoy silence together. Of course, this was only when Schuldig could shut up, and that was a rare moment indeed. He was always making noise, always yelling about something, always making sudden, rash movements, as if he couldn't figure out what to do next with all those voices pummeling at his mental shields. But now he was quiet, and I was more than happy about it.

He'd gone out club hopping the night before, glammed up like a doll; glitter over his eyes and his lips thick with lipstick. He'd spiked his hair and shoved himself into tight leather pants, gone all out for the public eye. He would've pranced around the house to glean a lust-filled look out of me had the pants allowed enough movement for it, but thank God it didn't. I might not have let him go out if he had.

He'd stayed out all night, arriving home sated and exhausted at dawn. I was just going through my first cup of morning coffee when he stumbled in, his makeup smeared, his grin a shade desperate. His clothes and hair were disheveled, but he didn't seem to mind as he shucked his platform boots and crawled onto my lap, pressing sloppy kisses that reeked of alcohol and sex against my closed lips. I shoved him off, waving the smell away with a hand as I turned back to my coffee and cigarette.

He sighed and lay out on the couch, half asleep in seconds. A hand with silver-polished fingernails wound in the air like smoke, lazy little circles as my redhead dozed, still comfortably drunk. He was stretched out, the epitome of lust, sinful to look at. He heard my thoughts and turned his head to grin at me, inviting. I turned away, pretending I didn't care. We both knew I wouldn't touch him until he'd showered, brushed his teeth, wiped all evidences of other lovers off. I didn't particularly care if there were others, but that didn't mean I wanted to taste them when I kissed him.

I finished my coffee and left to refill my cup. When I returned, he was asleep. I sighed and drew a blanket over his shoulders, wiped his hair out of his face, my fingers brushing his cheek. He looked so young when he was asleep, all the lines of our lifestyle melting away as he drempt of who-knew-what…

I liked him so much better when he was asleep, it made sitting next to him far more bearable. It also made it easier to steal his cigarettes.

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_Fin Chapter 6_

_Please Review_

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**To My Readers: **(Did you all die?)

**Rori Barton**Have you ever felt the unaltered joy of putting your face on a hot zipper? It hurts like wow…whimper I just did that three days ago hugging a pair of jeans fresh from the dryer. .


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Notes: **Got back from Otakon with a twisted ankle, three blisters, a black eye and interesting stories for the next two years. I'm really quite pleased with myself; I need to get into my sword fights with people.

I'm also signed up for classes next semester. I'm only taking four and I made it so I only have school three days a week. Of course, all these classes have homework (cue the dramatic horror music), so I'll be working on the two other weekdays that I'll be sleeping in, but no matter. I got the courses I wanted, so life at the moment is looking fairly bright.

Except that no one is posting in any of the RP's I have running…And because my grandmother is up terrorizing – oop, I mean visiting – the family I am absolutely forced to hide in my room and zone out in front of the internets.

Anyone interested in RPing with me? I'm desperate.

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**Glimpses 7**

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**1980 A. D. or 1994 A. D.**

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I was screaming, pounding my fists against the walls and door until they went numb and bled, then I pounded some more. I was blind without my glasses, but I could See everything in a mad struggle with my senses as the medications took effect. Soon enough I would be in a stupor, helpless in the hands of my visions. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, staining the neck of my hospital-issue shirt. My bare feet were freezing, scrabbling across the cool linoleum as I jammed my shoulder against the door.

"Let me out! Please…Make them stop!" I was begging the cold pair of eyes that watched me. Student doctors, come to see the crazy boy, youngest in the ward, suffering from such acute delirium he could barely get through a day without screaming. I'd been here since I was six, when my mother thought I was possessed by the devil and priests couldn't get rid of it.

Fingernails broke as I scrapped at the steel door, and I hiccupped, my sobs quieting as the lull of chemical sleep began to pull at me. It was getting harder to fend off the dreamy quality the Now took on, when everything seemed to slow down and everywhere was a comfortable place to lie down, even the hard floor. I was many men at once, all the same man, but someone else with every passing moment. Some days I spoke fluent Japanese, other days German, other days I would take on a slight accent someone once placed as Irish, and yet other days I knew nothing, my voice soft and twangy with thick Georgian accent.

They said I was multiple personality. They said I was schizophrenic. They said I was the puppet of demons. They all dammed me to this hell, where every moment I was subjected to the forces that threw my mind and body around like my sister's rag doll. I couldn't walk down the hall without pausing, seeing future laid over future over present like some kind of ghostly film I couldn't pull away. I was kept calm through pills and electroshock, but it never lasted long. I was growing immune to those chemical hits and the EST only seemed to make my visions worse, my mind unable to handle the constant input of whatever fed me what I saw.

For it was the future I saw. There was no doubt about it. I jumped at sounds before I heard them, could tell fortunes to the young nurses without having to look at their palms and find them pleased the next day that what I said had come true. I knew when they were coming to put me through one of their spontaneous exams, when they would test my reflexes and ask me questions. Always questions, always interested in what I'd do next or say next, but never what I meant. They didn't know anything about me.

I was stretched on the floor on my room now, softly crying as I drifted into my dreams. There is no sleep for me, only dreams, and another form of consciousness. I am always deprived of sleep, my mind refusing to obey and rest for even a moment. My fingers close around something soft, and I open my eyes again.

I find myself lying in a bed, my head on a down-soft pillow and my skin warmed by thick comforters and the body that is pressed against me. I lean down and smell the hair there, fine as spider silk, fragrant with some sweet shampoo. I can feel strands of the wild mane against my cheek and a strong arm over my waist, the tips of fingers pressed into the small of my back. That fire-orange head lifts and I am drowned by eyes so blue it mocks even the ocean. And such mocking eyes, a pair that laughs at death and love and stand-up comedy with equal fervor; they were wild eyes, barely lucid eyes, understanding eyes. These eyes knew everything about me, that long nose and madman smile laughing at me as well, laugh at my foolish attempts to escape Fate and God and Tradition.

It was to this man that I dedicated Anarchy to; it was for this man that I committed genocide.

For one man, one fucked-up asshole of a man.

"What is it, Brad?" he asks and his voice is like nails on a chalkboard, fire alarms and gunshots. He laughs softly and noses at my chin, eyes expectant for my reply, but I am taken again by his beauty. He is beautiful, like walking poetry, like chuckling murder.

"You're spouting the weirdest thoughts…was it a dream?" His hand pushes into my hair and holds the back of my head. I am caught, I can't speak, the languor of pills makes me slow. I think I was crying, my face is still hot and my eyes still sore. A headache is already mounting and my jaw aches from clenching.

"Brad?" He is worried now, fearful because I didn't respond right away. Perhaps I always answer him immediately, perhaps that is my habit.

"Schuldig," I finally whisper, bowing my face into his hair again, the vibrant color as comforting as sunlight after a night of seeing ghosts. I am clutching at him, holding him as close to me as possible, checking to make sure that this isn't a dream, that I can really feel him.

"Should I pinch you?" he offers, but there is no longer laughter. He is truly nervous now, and I know that this isn't like me at all. I am a man now, grown up and free of that awful asylum, with a closet full of suits and an apartment of my own, a lover and a gun and a mission…Clinging is something only a boy would do.

But I can't let go, not yet.

"It's the Now, I promise," he murmurs against me, sharp fingernails pinching the skin of my back hard enough to make me flinch. "It was just a dream, a memory. It's over now."

"Don't lie," I sighed, "I don't want lies."

There is a long pause where he goes still again, so still I think he has fallen back to sleep. Then he startles me by speaking, his mind slipping against my thoughts and clearing them for me like a maid after the dust bunnies under a bed. Soon, I might be able to rest again, with his telepathy keeping vigil for me.

"I wasn't lying. Go back to sleep."

I close my eyes and the fluorescent light and white walls stream through my eyelids. I press my face against the pillow to cut them off.

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_Fin Chapter 7_

_Please Review_

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**To My Readers:**

**eva84: **Something in the back of my head believes that Brad Crawford wouldn't be pleased about being called 'sweet', even if you are right. (smile) Thank you; there are more short bits to come.

**fullmetalguitar**He's only stealing cigarettes…(laugh)

**Rori Barton** So it seems…(Brad-like glower) Well hey, free cigs. Who's Crawford to pass those up, eh? Cigarettes are expensive!


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Notes: **So, yeah, another chapter. I have a lot written, actually. I'm surprised with him much I have in backup just in case I go through some kind of drought. It's reassuring to have so many fresh chapters saved so I can edit at my leisure.

It's all great that so many of you really like this story. It's more incentive to write. It's also really hard to keep people in canon. (laughs) Anyway, there's more to come, I promise. I wanted to thank all my readers anyway.

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**Glimpses 8**

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**1991 A.D.**

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"Do you believe in God, Brad?"

I looked up at my housemate and blinked, startled by such a sudden question after nearly an hour in silence. We had spent the afternoon sharing the couch, reading and drinking tea. The only noises we had made were the flipping of pages, the clink of our cups on the table and the occasional sigh.

I was tempted not to answer, to return to the haven of my pages and perpetuate the silence, but those blue eyes were holding mine, fiercely demanding my reply. His shock of orange hair seemed wild and alive, like a lion's mane, and his fair skin was luminous. His eyes were liked with thick kohl that made all his features stand out even brighter.

He looked like a vampire.

"Well?" he pressed.

"Do you?" I countered, my hackles up at the direct questioning. I loathed talking about myself; I had done it too much as a boy.

"I asked you first."

"And you will go without a reply," I snapped and looked back down at my book.

His mindtouch in my head was sinuous, glittering like a snake's back against my thoughts. I forced myself to think of nothing, and thus give him nothing. All he would find on my surface thought would be the feel of a snake's cool skin, the soft, earthy smell of dirt and rotting leaves, and the legends of those evil creatures.

"I could take it from your mind, you know. You have no way to block me."

"I know, but would you really pay me so much disrespect?" I murmured back, turning at last to fully meet his gaze. I was so calm, so unemotional. I felt as if I had been made perfect in my quietness, cold and pristine with almost zenlike apathy.

I'd lived too long in Japan if I truly thought that any sense of well-being came from sheer mental nonexistence. No wonder people thought I was an emotionless prick.

I felt Schuldig move closer, his whole side pressed against mine, his lips against my ear, soft and pliant and venomous.

"Yes, you're a prick, but I've seen enough of your mind to know that you are hardly emotionless. You're just angry, only angry. You believe the world has betrayed you and that it must suffer."

I felt my cool moment of silent perfection melting away now as the very anger my redhead mentioned raised color to my face. In seconds I was seeing red, my fingers gripping my book. I wanted to kill him for ruining that moment of peace.

"So answer my question," he pressed.

"I don't see why I should."

"So I'll know where you send me when you finally snap and kill me?" Schuldig laughed. I stared at him, shocked. Then I frowned, shoving my glasses back up my nose and turning back to my book.

"You need to stop making shit up, Schuldig. Leave me alone."

He sighed and got to his feet, flitting off as if nothing had happened. He did it just to annoy me.

Hours later as I was chopping vegetables for supper and dumping the garlic cloves into the pot of whatever it was that Farfarello was stirring, I was still thinking about what Schuldig had asked me. I knew the answer, of course, but it bothered me that the man had asked. Didn't he already know the answer? Was he trying to get me to talk for no reason and he thought broaching a topic rife with potential arguments was a good way to go about it? I didn't understand at all.

I glanced at my pale teammate and frowned. Maybe Schuldig had been hanging around Farfarello too long…

As if he'd heard my thoughts, one gold eye flickered up to meet mine, his thin, scarred face morphing into a smile. He looked nice when he smiled, some kind of boyish innocence shining though all the horrors he wore on his skin. Watching his expressions had stopped making my skin crawl years ago.

"Schuldig told me about your fight this afternoon," he murmured in English. I scoffed and turned away to chop a radish with particular vehemence.

"It wasn't a fight. I didn't raise my voice."

"You know as well as I that decibels don't make an argument. And before you ask, I didn't put him up to it. I already know what you think of the Almighty."

"Maybe you should be the prophet from now on," I growled. My sarcasm only seemed to amuse him, because he was laughing into the crook of his arm, trying to cover it with a cough.

"I like my current position just fine, but thanks." He meant the grunt work I gave him: cutting people up, interrogational torture, and my personal confidant. I just shrugged, dumping the last of the vegetables into the pot. "You want me to talk to him?"

I looked up again. "What?"

"Tell him to leave it lie?"

"Is that even a possibility?" Last time I'd told Schuldig to mind his own business he'd left the house in a fit and didn't come home for days. I was the one who had to hunt him down and apologize before he even considered coming back.

And Esset said they'd studied my teammates for perfect functional dynamics…Liars…

"If I ask nicely." Another smile. "He's bound to listen then, manners has that effect on a lot of people."

"And killing him would be too much trouble," I added sourly as I set the table and got down the plates and glasses. Farfarello just laughed. It was a calming sound, his laughter, and even as we spoke I could feel the coil of rage that had been building in the last few hours finally begin to unwind. I might actually make it through the meal without snapping at someone.

"Hey?! What's for dinner?" That nasal voice broke my revere and I could feel my shoulders tense. Farfarello just looked at me and sighed, shaking his head as he turned away and stirring the stew.

Maybe I would get through a meal without snapping, but I might be tempted to do far worse…like shoot a certain redhead.

I gave Schuldig a nasty look and fled from the kitchen, the both of them staring.

Team dynamics my ass.

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_Fin Chapter 8_

_Please Review_

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**To My Readers: **

**Rori Barton**You want to cuddle Brad Crawford? (shudder) To do so incites death and destruction…Anyway, there shall be more details later. There are so many years of his life that I've yet to go into.

**maycat**Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying this fic, and I've doubly glad you like my characterization of Crawford. (smiles)

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**(This reply has Spoliers. Do not read if you're going to bitch about the end of the series being ruined for you)**

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**fullmetalguitar**'Beyond awesome'…Now my ego's going to be inflated all today. (giddy smile) And can you imagine someone like Brad Crawford having any kind of normal life? I mean really, he's a child of the 70's (if my calculations are correct), who grows up to be the leader of the assassin group who ends the Elders of Esset. You'd have to be pretty fucked up to accomplish something like that, because normal suburban kids just don't aspire to such things…at least not normally…

(grin) Sure, you can keep it forever…or as long as it takes for to delete it like the assholes they are. It's good to hear from you again. (huggle)


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Notes: **I'm going to the beach for a week, and to make up for my possible lack of internet, I will post two chapters. Please enjoy!

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**Glimpses 9**

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**1993 A.D.**

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I didn't understand how I hadn't Seen it coming, even when the pain was flaring in my chest like fire, engulfing my senses for one terrifying moment. I stared at the black weapon aimed at me with comically-wide eyes, gaping like an idiot.

Then the anger set in. My team was already moving in for the kill, even before I'd ordered it. I ripped out my pistol and aimed, my mouth set in a flat line of seething hatred as I set a bullet in the boy's skull. His brains and blood exploded away from me as he fell, and even then I still wanted to kill him. My shoe was coming down on his head, crushing it as I hissed black curses at his body.

"This was one of my best fucking suits, you stupid bastard!" I shouted at the corpse, slamming the heel of my shoe down until Schuldig and Farfarello pulled me away. Both of their faces were etched in worry, fingers opening the folds of my jacket and shirt to check how much damage I'd taken. I could hear Schuldig hiss.

"Oracle, he's dead. The mission is complete. Let's go." Farfarello's words, snapping in my ears until I was sensible again. I blinked at him, fury abating. Pain bloomed with almost delicate slowness as the adrenaline wore off and shock set in.

"Holy fuck, I've been shot!" I gasped, sagging against my albino's offered shoulder as he pressed the wad of tissues I'd left in my jacket pocket against the seeping wound. Blood soaked the flimsy paper almost immediately, but I kept pressure on it all the same, a stream of curses pouring from my mouth almost as steadily as lifeblood from my chest.

"Have an ounce of grace, Brad. It's only a gunshot wound, not even a fatal one."

I wasn't sure if Schuldig was trying to comfort me or insult me. I slapped him just to make sure.

"Go make yourself useful and find Prodigy," I snapped, letting Farfarello shove me into the back seat of the car and search the trunk for the first aid kit. Schuldig leveled me with a wretched look, my bloody handprint bright on his cheek, and he turned away with an angry flourish.

Farfarello returned to my side and helped me out of my shirt so he could tape gauze to my bullet hole and wrap several layers of the thick stuff around my torso to keep pressure on it and slow the bleeding.

"I suppose asking if it hurts would be an obvious question," Farfarello mumbled through a smirk.

"Quite. Drop me off at the hospital and the three of you get back to the house and clean up. The team is under Mastermind's command, but you are to keep him in check. No doubt he'll do something stupid like try to get to me before I'm prepared to deal with him."

"Understood. Any further orders?"

I laid my head back against the headrest and smiled to myself.

"Yeah. I want a cheesecake when I get home."

He laughed and nodded. "Sure."

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_Fin Chapter 9_

_Please Review_

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**Author's Notes: **Because who doesn't want a cheesecake after they get shot? 


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Notes: **This is my favorite chapter so far. I hope you like it as much as I do.

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**Glimpses 10**

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**1982 A.D.**

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There was a reason I couldn't be around other boys in the hospital. The Down Syndrome kids, the shivering epileptics, the swearing schizophrenics…

There was a reason they put me in my own padded cell when I was twelve and puberty hit with a vicious barrage of visions that left me a gibbering mess the twenty hours a day that I wasn't flinging myself around like someone possessed.

After I turned fifteen, I was mostly functional, and the doctors said I'd recovered from some kind of emotional breakdown. Usually I would ignore them, take my pills and sleep like a good boy.

But sometimes I'd forget why I needed those pills…

Sometimes I would find myself unable to stop twitching, or picking at loose threads, or chewing my fingernails until I bled, or screaming at the television that blared twenty-four hours a day in the 'family room' of the men's ward. Sometimes something as simple as a misplaced word would set me off and I would run rampant in the halls, violently tearing into anyone I caught until the orderlies could subdue me.

By fifteen I had already killed two people, maimed six nurses, and attacked all of my therapists. I could wreak havoc on the human body with my bare hands, pick locks, and escape my straight jackets. I was a perfect horror and I reveled in my insanity.

I could sing and cry and bleed like any other human, but I was something more. I knew things others didn't know, and learned languages I'd only heard in my own head, without outside contact.

But now I was in my cell, propped back against the wall with my arms strapped to my sides and my nose twitching with irritation. I'd just been caught in the head psychiatrist's office rearranging the patient's files so no one would know what mental fuckup Suzi or James or Jenny or Brad had.

The door opened and the light flipped on, and I glowered at the white sneakers that approached me.

"Time for your medications, Brad!" the nurse's cheerful voice bubbled at me. It was all I could do to not try and bite her kneecaps like some Monty Python character.

I looked up at an unfamiliar face and cocked my head slightly. This was a nurse I hadn't seen before…perhaps she was new to the ward.

Perhaps I could convince her to make my nose stop itching…

"Before I take them, could you please scratch my nose? It's been bothering me for an hour," I asked, my Southern burr rounding out my vowels so my words were soft and deceptively gentle. I even smiled at her, a shy boy just asking for a favor despite all the leather and canvas around me that practically shouted 'Danger! Don't touch!'

"Why sure, honey. Where does it itch? Right on the tip?" She reached out and touched the end of my nose; I couldn't believe my luck.

"Yes, right there. Thank you."

I shot forward and bit her finger off at the joint. Her screams were like music and I was smiling around the twitching digit in my mouth, silently watching her writhe on the floor until one of the orderlies dragged her out. Another one held his hand out and told me to spit out the finger I had been delightfully chewing on, his shaking fist enough of a threat that I obeyed without causing more trouble.

I could hear the nurse out in the hall, screaming still. "You freak! That freak bit my fucking finger off! Don't touch it! Oh my God!"

"That was a very bad thing to do, Brad," the orderly was saying, but I turned away, already bored, "That's why we're going to revoke your hall rights."

"Not much of a loss there," I countered, spitting blood on the hem of his white pants. "You people don't let me have any fun."

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_Fin Chapter 10_

_Please Review_


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:**Yes, I'm still alive. I just couldn't write anything I liked whenever I actually felt in a Crawford-like mood. This was one of my stock chapters.

Anyway, I should be posting more soon. Enjoy.

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**Glimpses 11**

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**1989 A.D.**

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It was an eyesore. It was the color of a bowl of split pea soup I'd eaten in England, or perhaps rotting meat left in the cupboard for a month or maybe even fungal moss on the ground of murky forests in Louisiana. And every time I looked at it I couldn't help flinching.

"It doesn't look that bad, Brad," Schuldig countered, twisting strands of his deplorable hair around a finger in his ruthless attempt to get me to look at him. I had gone three days without looking above his shoulders and it annoyed him to no end.

"Actually, it does. And it's going to look even worse when your roots start growing out. What possessed you to dye your hair that color? It was fine before."

He just shrugged and I turned away in disgust, the pathetic part of my mind running through all sorts of things that reminded me of that color. It fell into a sort of cadence, the chanting that I heard from the other crazy men in the ward when I was still strapped to the beds of a Catholic asylum.

Celery, vomit, seawater, that tie Schuldig gave me for Christmas, rotting teeth, green peppers, chilies, certain kinds of fish…

I tried to read my newspaper, but I couldn't focus. I tossed the black and white and color photos aside with a sigh and rearranged my limbs so I took up the entire sofa, my head propped on the padded arm. It was some horrible modern freakshow of garish blue and yellow flowers and bad design, and it didn't fit into any of our other furniture, but Schuldig had sworn he couldn't live without it when he had dragged it home.

His hair was now the color of the grammar checker on the word processor of my computer.

He took my glasses off for me and I heard him set them aside on the coffee table. His hands slipped into my hair and began to massage my scalp, as if he too could feel an oncoming headache. Looking at the boy now was enough to make my eyes ache…It sucked.

"It's just hair. It'll grow out. Or I could dye it back sometime." He was trying to be comforting, knowing full well that half my headaches nowadays were caused by the sight of his ruined mop of hair. I had been nearly mourning the loss of the garish orange locks for a week now and he'd finally stopped laughing about it and started pitying me.

Even I occasionally deserved a little pity. It didn't help that we were between jobs and about to receive our third member to the team. The stress of it all was killing my immune system and I was afraid that the amount of vitamins and tea I was taking wouldn't be enough to stave off some nasty illness. I'd even stopped smoking, for fear of coming down with the bronchitis that Schuldig had the year before, just in case it decided to jump hosts…

The dumb kid was still coughing from it, even though he was deemed healthy months ago.

His thumbs pressed into my temples and I sighed, relaxing slightly as his fingers cradled my head. My shoulders were still tense, my back and eyes sorer that I could remember them ever being, but I was slowly unwinding after an especially trying week.

"Dye it back. The red suited you," I murmured softly, my voice barely above a whisper. I was so tired these days, it was a wonder that the single cup of coffee I managed to suck down before I left carried me through the day. I couldn't remember when I'd last eaten and my visions kept attacking me whenever it was most inconvenient. Eventually I'd given up driving and let Schuldig chauffer me around because I had nearly gotten us both killed the last time a vision jumped me.

"Maybe in a few weeks. I like it this color and I don't want to fuck my hair up with bleach just yet. I'll do it later. You need to sleep."

I sighed again and shook my head slightly, finally sitting up and wiping at my eyes, pinching my cheeks.

"I have work to do," I growled as I reached for my glasses. Schuldig's hand grabbed mine in midair and I was forced to focus on his face without the aid of my prescription. I squinted as much as I could, but I couldn't see details for a damn.

"It'll be there in the morning. Just get a couple hours rest, Brad. I can hold down the fort for a while."

I didn't like the idea of leaving things entirely in Schuldig's hands. He was still a kid; it might screw up everything I'd worked for so far.

"Please." His tone was annoyingly sure. "Give me some credit. I didn't survive training just so I could watch you work yourself into an early grave. Go to bed. I'll wake you if anything happens."

He was already standing, yanking me to my feet and forcing me to my Spartan bedroom. I'd left my glasses in the other room, but I couldn't find it in me to go back and get them. It took all my energy to tug off my shirt and crawl under the thick blankets. Schuldig leaned over me to turn off the light and green curls of hair tumbled into my face.

The color of grass and ivy, or perhaps the hard covers of old books in the library…

"I really do hate your hair."

He laughed, a nasal snigger that had made me want to smack him the first time I heard it. Thin fingers ruffled my hair and forced my eyes to shut.

"Don't compliment me so much, Brad, or it'll go straight to my head."

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_Fin Chapter 11_

_Please Review_


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Notes:**From this moment forward, I'm changing the usual 'A.D.' to 'C.E.', meaning 'Common Era'. It isn't to be politically correct, it's just personal preference.

Right…moving on…

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**Glimpses 12**

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**1994 C.E.**

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It's four o'clock in the morning.

You'd think a man would be asleep at this hour, but not me.

No, I'm Insomnia Man, who is able to go for days without sleep and survive by massive infusions of coffee alone…

I should get a cape. A big black cape. And learn how to fly unassisted…

Or maybe I could be like Batman with all of his gadgets. Though I don't much like the idea of spandex…

"Brad, stop thinking to yourself, it's annoying the fuck out of me."

I know what power I would not want; Telepathy. Every superhero with telepathy was either some lousy fish man who spoke to dolphins or was never heard of after the first six comic books.

I wouldn't want Precognition either. Precogs in comic books were weird, dysfunctional people, the kind who used their powers to help the superhero but never got any credit. If I were going to help some pansy who wears his underwear on the outside of his pants, I think I should get some recognition for it, like a medal or a billion dollar check or something…

And if I were a superhero, no one would smack me just because my asshole Telepathic subordinate doesn't like it when I try to think…

"Maybe I wouldn't mind if it wasn't four in the fucking morning. Christ, Brad, don't you ever sleep?" It was hard to understand Schuldig's words, because his face was buried in his pillow, but somewhere under the mass of orange hair I was sure there was a face to which I was speaking…Unless his hair had finally eaten his head completely.

"Sleep? Me? I'm Insomnia Man. I need no sleep," I countered, "And you, as my sidekick, Brain Boy, should be catering to my constant need for coffee. Because, as evildoers should never know, I cannot survive without caffeine. It is my kryptonite."

"Are you high? Have you been smoking crack, Brad? I mean, really, you sound like it. Brain Boy? You couldn't come up with anything better?"

At least he wasn't yet commenting on the skewed superhero theme of my thoughts...

"I'm tired, my head's not working right."

"Then go to sleep. Or shut up. Or leave. Whatever, just let me get some rest."

"Fine, fine…" I threw my legs over the side of the bed and shuffled around in search of my robe. I slid out into the dark hallway and shut the door behind me with a sigh.

Maybe I'd rather be a villain. Villains were much more interesting than the heroes anyway. Certainly not the little ones, the petty thieves and whatnot, I mean the arch rivals, the foils of the heroes. Those were the people one could admire, the smart or strong or just plain evil men and women who could always run circles around a hero without breaking a sweat.

Yes, I'd be better as a villain than a hero any day. I already had my minions, my plans for world domination, the foil characters to amuse myself with…

The thing was, the name Brad Crawford didn't strike fear into the hearts of millions. It barely struck fear into that teenaged computer geek who was still holed up in his room surfing the net. I could hear the keys of his computer clicking even as I passed the door on the way to the family room.

Power had not yet come to me. I was a villain who had not yet fully bloomed, but it was only a matter of time.

After all, I knew the end of movies before I'd even watched them. I knew I had time…

Just as I knew Farfarello would be on the couch, flipping through infomercials so fast I knew he wasn't watching any. I sat down beside him and let him pillow his head on my thigh, thumb still flicking through channels on the remote. I rested a hand on his neck, thumb on his pulse. It was a bit like having a dog set his head on one's lap.

To have such a controlled mass of wildness nearby was a bit of a comfort, like having a half-tamed wolf as a house pet. He was there as good company, very attentive and understanding, intelligent without being condescending or vying for a position of leadership, and knowing that if someone unwanted came to call he could literally rip him or her limb from limb without guilt, shame, or dizzy spells over seeing spilt blood.

Hell, Farfarello would enjoy the exercise.

Maybe he could be my sidekick, since Schuldig wasn't willing… "The Psychotic Albino", perhaps…

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_Fin Chapter 12_

_Please Review_


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Notes: **Back from the dead,ready to entertain the masses!

This is just after Farfarello was added to the team. There should be more Farfarello-centered chapters when I get to them. Why? Because I adore Farfarello.

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**Glimpses 13**

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**1990 C.E.**

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I didn't understand Farfarello's obsession with God. I didn't condone it, and often used it to my advantage, but sometimes it made me grind my teeth with annoyance. Like when he quotes Latin verses or sings hymns in the shower, or goes on a tirade about how incredibly wrong other religious factions on the news are because they haven't 'wised up to the Almighty's plan to fuck with everyone'.

"They'll figure it out someday," I murmured, leaning against the couch and sipping a glass of water, just enough to comfortably swallow my morning pills. "Not before they take out America, I hope."

One gold eye turned to me, he was grinning.

"Still haven't forgiven Miss Liberty, have you?"

"More like Uncle Sam, actually. I'm not a citizen and they still demand taxes from me. We should've hired the IRS for Esset's hunting teams, they work so much faster."

Farfarello snorted and flipped to another news channel, this one blathering on and on in German. I barely listened, disinterested in things I had dreamed of the night before. Schuldig walked past, hair mussed and eyes squinted tightly shut as he felt around the apartment, trying to find the kitchen. He dared to fondle me, but I stuck a leg out and tripped him before he could try. He crashed to the floor with a frustrated growl and I stepped out of the way of retribution, flopping down beside our new comrade to stare at the television.

Schuldig struggled to his feet, still half-asleep, still muttering blackly in three languages as he staggered into the kitchen.

"Not too nice, are you?" our new teammate murmured, barely looking at me. I sipped my water.

"You're welcome to worship me." Mild, unaffected, I halfheartedly hoped that I looked like the saint statues he bowed to in chapels. He just laughed.

"Blasphemer."

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_Fin Chapter 13_

_Please Review_

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**To My Reviewers: **

**TheInflictedFinger**: Sorry that this wasn't 'sooner'. I couldn't find it in me to write for so long. Thank you for the review, though. I shall try hard to update more often.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Notes: **Finally, after months, a post. And I really like this one. Brad is nine in this chapter, and I'm obviously taking liberties with his past. But hey, it's never described in the original series.

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**1977 C.E.**

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I wanted my mother, I was asking for her. Everyone knew her, that pretty lady nurse, with her long black hair in a bun at her neck. Everyone said they had just spoken to her, had seen her sturdy white shoes and her bleached white socks on her long, pale legs walking just down this hall minutes ago. If I would only wait, they could call her for me.

But they didn't understand, she wouldn't come back if they called. She was leaving without me, and I had to go with her no matter what. She wasn't being mean about it, she simply forgot sometimes, like the other day when supper burned on the stove, she had forgotten there were other things to watch than the birds outside. It wasn't her fault and I had to find her. She never once forgot me. Her son, her boy, I would protect her, if only I could find her.

She must've been called away by a doctor, work was very important. Work had to be done and she was the head nurse, the very best in the whole hospital, possibly the whole state too. Maybe the best in the world, I thought she was. She loved her patients like she loved me, after all, and cried great, shuttering sobs when she lost one, like she might cry over me. I had to find her.

I peered into each room, old and sickly-yellowed grandparents of other children reached for me, calling me 'Betty' or 'George'. They weren't my grandparents, mine were already dead. I moved on.

Younger grown ups in other rooms, some men with bad combovers or women with frazzled hair from the EST, some shaved completely bald with bandages around their heads. Those ones always sat so still, as if they were statues. They frightened me terribly, and it gave me nightmares to think about what had been done to them. Regardless of how much better they were now than before, it didn't seem right to me to have their heads popped open and their brains muddles about like that. Gooseflesh erupted on my arms and I shivered, quickly running away.

There was a locked ward. I had promised never to go in there, so I turned around and found a stairwell. Perhaps mother was on another floor.

I had just burst through the door when I found her, crumpled on the linoleum in a faint. A couple other nurses and a doctor were gathered around, trying to revive her while an orderly retrieved a stretcher. I hear her voice then, a soft moan as a doctor lifted her and set her on the rolling stretcher that had just arrived. A nurse saw me and grabbed my arm and tried to drag me away from the scene, but I broke away, reaching instead to take hold of mother's hand, clenching it hard and running alongside. I had to stay with her, I was the only one who could protect her. She had said so, and Mother never lied. Not to me.

"Mother! It's me. It's Brad. Mother, please wake up. It's all right, I'm here now. You'll be just fine." Words, meaningless words of comfort, words I'd learned from her. She never lied to me, but she had to lie to her patients sometimes. "Mother!"

An orderly grabbed me around my middle and dragged me away, and though I kicked and raged, he had a good hold and would not let me go. The stretcher disappeared behind a set of double-hinged doors.

"Mother! Mother! Come back! Mother!"

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I was in the doctor's lounge, and someone had wrapped a blanket around my shoulder and handed me a cup of iced tea with a lemon wedge. I disliked the tea and had shrugged the blanket off long ago, it was ridiculous to be bundled up like that in the humid Georgian summer. Atlanta was a steamy hundred degrees all week, but the sweat the beaded on my skin was cold as a winter rainstorm. I ignored the tea and eat the lemon down to the peel.

It had been hours since they took Mother away, and though someone had turned the television on to a cartoon channel, I was not interested. There were magazines, even National Geographic, but I was not interested. They had told me to wait there, and I was waiting, and I looked at every doctor that walked in with hopeful eyes, good news, any news about Mother.

None came until it was well after dark and the television channel was off air. My tea had grown hot as the room around it, and I sat back in the chair, staring at the ceiling. I heard someone, one of the doctors, kneel by my chair and wait for me to look up. When I did, he gave me a tired, pitying smile. He set a hand on my knee and I narrowed my eyes at him, pushing my glasses back to the bridge of my nose with a single finger.

"Brad Crawford, right?" he asked. I squared my jaw and glared at him harder. He didn't look like he had good news.

"About your mother…I'm very sorry, but…Miss Crawford passed away not long after she fainted. We had figured it might've been a tumor, as she'd been complaining of headaches and forgetfulness some time ago, and were going to do surgery, but she died on the table before anything could be done. An autopsy shows that the tumor was far larger than we had thought…Would you like to see her, and do you have someone you can call?"

I kicked him in the face and shoved myself out of the chair, racing past him and down, down, down the stairs to the coroner's lab. I knew the old doctor that worked there, he had always been nice when I visited, and didn't mind at all when I wanted to see him work on the bodies. He had thought I wanted to be a coroner too, and maybe I had.

I banged in, startling him, and demanded to see my mother. He ushered me to a steel table and drew the sheet back so I could see her face. She was cold when I touched her cheek, and her skin was blue. She looked like a sleeping ice queen, like the one who sent Narnia into winter, but she didn't move. She didn't speak. She didn't even breathe. I stared, confused. She wasn't supposed to leave me like this, she had promised she wouldn't. She had promised she would always be there to look after me if I was there to protect her. She had promised she would love me forever and now she wasn't.

She was a liar. And she had left me alone, no family, no ties, no help and no money. Nothing. I had nothing now, not even her. Something like a sob was wrenched from deep inside me and I shoved the table over, it and my mother's corpse crashing onto the floor. The coroner came forward, begging me to stop, to calm down, and I raged at him, screaming. I reached for a scalpel on one of the lab tables, it was filthy and slick with someone's blood, and jabbed it at him, catching him on the arm.

"Stay away from me!" I shouted, and then paused, thinking. It was the first moment since seeing my mother being wheeled away that I could collect my thoughts. They had taken her where I couldn't protect her. They had killed her by keeping me away. If it wasn't for them, I could've saved her. It all made sense now, who was to blame for this.

"Who was Mother's doctor?" I demanded, my voice high and sharp, my fingers holding the handle of the scalpel loosely, it felt inexpert to grip, as if I might have less control over the sharp edge. The coroner backed up, terrified that I might cut him again, and babbled a name. I nodded to him and marched out. He wasn't the one who had to pay for Mother's death, he couldn't hurt her now that she was already gone.

I reached the first nurse's station and smiled at them. They liked it when a child smiled for them, it reminded them of their little boys and girls at home, children they sometimes brought to the hospital in the summers, when there was no sitter to watch them. Mother had brought me here so often they all knew my name and birthday, what television show I liked best and what book was my favorite, even what subject I was good at in school; natural science. I had the scalpel down by my leg, hidden from their view. They had no idea what was going on.

"I need to see Doctor Conner. I want to thank him for taking care of Mother for me. Could you tell me where his office is, please?" I asked, remembering to be polite. Mother always wanted me to be an 'upstanding young gentleman', and I would strive, even now, to please her. The nurse I was speaking to nodded very sadly at me and pointed down the hall.

"Second floor, you'll have to take the stairs. The room is 219. A little hard to find, it's around a corner, that little alcove. I'm so sorry about your mother, she was the best nurse the hospital ever had."

I knew that already, had preened over how good she was, how perfect and expert and smart she was. She was the strongest and most beautiful nurse to have ever lived. I didn't need their pity now, but I nodded my head anyway, and headed for the stairs. "Thank you."

I ran, up two flights and down the long corridor, around a corner and to 219. I knocked on the door, and a handsome young doctor, the one who had picked my mother up off the floor, answered. His shiny brown hair was combed to one side and his nose was slightly crooked, but he was tall, and his eyes were kind and sad. He wore doctor's scrubs still stained with blood. The iron reek had a flavor that I couldn't decided if I liked or not. He stepped aside and waited to shut the door behind me.

"Brad…Please, sit. I have some things I need to tell you about…about your mother and I."

I sat, though my eye twitched. This man needed to pay, but he had something he said needed to be said. I figured I had better listen, and then do what I wanted. The timber of his voice was not that of a doctor's either, but of a loved one, perhaps a father. I didn't like it. It was too familiar.

"Brad, Your mother and I…We were in love."

I leapt to my feet, my face burning with rage. How dare he! She was mine to love, not his!

"We were planning to get married in a year or two, but she said she was pregnant a few weeks ago. And now…well, she and the baby are dead. She wanted you to have a father, Brad. And maybe…if you wanted, I could adopt you. It would be what she wanted, I think."

"You don't know anything about her!" I snarled. "I don't want a father. Fathers are horrid and unreliable drunks."

"I'm not a drunk." the doctor countered, outraged. I leapt onto the table and held the scalpel to his throat.

"Doesn't matter now anyway. You won't marry her. You took her away from me! I was supposed to protect her!"

"Now Brad…Listen to me. I did all I could to save her but it was too late. The tumor, it was too big…"

"You killed her!" I shouted, and pressed the blade edge deeper, the skin coming apart under it like elastic butter. "And now I'm going to kill you."

It was a very quick affair, he only struggled and twitched after I had slashed his throat, but he hadn't managed to hurt me. He had gushed blood over everything, though, covering the desk and staining the papers, and spraying me in the face. When he was finished I had to take me glasses off and wipe them on the curtain to see again.

I smiled, much calmer now. Mother had been avenged, and there was nothing left to really worry about anymore. A few seconds later, a couple of nurses and an orderly burst into the room, drawn by the noise. One woman fainted, the other screamed, and the orderly wrenched the scalpel out of my hand and pulled my arm nearly out of it's socket before pressing it to my back. I whimpered, and my glasses slipped off my nose, and in a matter of minutes someone had wrapped me in a blanket and was carrying me down the hallway.

We passed through the doors of the locked ward and I finally began to struggle.

"Mother said I shouldn't go in there," I explained when the orderly told me to be quiet. "I promised her I wouldn't! Put me down!"

He ignored me and dropped me into a small room with a padded floor and four padded walls. The door was also padded, but for the window, without glass, just bars. A single light shone from the ceiling, buzzing as the door slammed shut and a lock was slid home.

"No! I promised Mother I wouldn't! Mother! Mother!"

* * *

"Mother! Mother!"

"Brad! Wake up!" Shaking me, and my eyes came open. The light on my nightstand was on and the light hurt, but it showed my mother's face in my bleary vision. I pressed my fingers into her cheek and instantly stopped struggling. I hugged her close, shivering.

"What's wrong, sweetheart? What did you dream? You're all right now, I've got you. No one's going to hurt you here, baby, I promise."

"They're going to hurt you, Mother. They're going to take you away from me, where I can't protect you. And you're going to die, oh, I don't want you to die! I love you, Mother, you can't!"

"Hush, Brad, be quiet now. It's all right now, I'm fine. See?" She kissed my forehead and smiled. "Just fine."

"But you won't be. It wasn't a dream, Mother, it happened. It did. I know it did, it didn't feel like a dream."

She paused, dark eyes quietly looking inward, thinking. Her hair was down now, and its tendrils curled gently over her sloping shoulders, softer even than the old cotton nightgown she wore. She petted my hair, and came back to herself, looking now at me.

"Like one of those things? Those dreams and feelings you get before something happens?" She said I had been seeing things and sensing things for years, crying as a baby before the thunder cracked and knowing when to duck in schoolyard fights. She was the only one who believed in me.

I nodded and hugged her again, unwilling to let her go, though she tried to pull away from me. She was shaking, and when I looked at her thin face, she looked too pale.

"Then it will happen. Do you know how much longer…?" Until she had to die. I shook my head. She bit her lip and nodded, then lay down on the bed and curled in my blanket.

"Turn the light off, Brad. I have some things I want to tell you."

* * *

_Fin Chapter 14_

_Please Review_

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**LadyTwist****:** Better late than never. Thank you for reviewing. I'm glad you're enjoying the story.

**eMu3****: **I have heard that you can get plot bunnies to organize as one large fictional army at your command with a dust buster and a glass of vodka.

But I've only heard.

Eszet might want the oil…


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Notes: **Been a while. But lucky you, I have two other chapters ready after this one. I need to get the next one okayed by Disco, as I kind of stole some of her ideas, but soon as it is (or when it's altered under the watchful eye of Disco), I'll put it up. I'd be sorry these keep taking so long to update, but I really don't care.

I'm going to college in a month. Am happily ignoring all responsibility until then. I also didn't edit this. Sorry.

* * *

**1992 C.E.**

* * *

This boy was my prize for years of faithful service, years of being a good dog and killing when I was told to kill. This boy was the last of my team, objectively the most powerful being on the planet.

I couldn't help but smile. I'd just won a lottery that would set our place in history in a matter of years. While we welcomed the boy into our twisted family, while Farfarello and Schuldig rattled off house rules and little jokes to make Prodigy feel more comfortable, I was counting down the hours until the call came in.

He didn't look powerful, not the same way the rest of us did. He looked young, too thin, as if his bones might shatter in too strong a breeze, or the sweltering Hong Kong summer would melt him where he stood. But in his head, under the fuzz of shaven black-brown hair, was a universe of intelligence and power that none of us could fully grasp. In my eyes, this boy was as good as God Himself, better because he answered to me.

Farfarello would be so amused if I'd told him that. As it was, he was helping the boy to a glass of water and blathering on in English I was half sure the child didn't understand. It was the accent slipping in when emotion took hold, making him damn hard to understand. It always made me wonder how those whose second language was English took to him.

Schuldig had slid back into his usual spot at my right, smiling in a quiet, sated way. I sipped my glass of water and pretended not to notice him.

"He looks just like you. People'll think he's your brat."

"He is my brat," I replied evenly. It wasn't what he'd meant.

"How sweet. We're a happy family now. Mom, Dad, Son and dog."

Farfarello snarled at him and lunged to punch. I couldn't help but laugh. The boy looked on, confused. As if he expected the team to be militarily rigid at every moment, like he'd never seen crazy people brawl.

I set my glass down and moved to haul Farfarello off, Schuldig screeching underneath about rabid pets not getting their shots.

"Nagi?" I said, looking up at him. "If you wouldn't mind helping, please?"

* * *

**To My Readers: (OMFG BATMAN! (fangasm))**

* * *

**fullmetalguitar****: **I do believe you're going to love chapter 16, seeing as you like dream sequences. Bit of a spin on the idea, but yes, almost the same.

Had to reread the chapter before writing updates and yeah, he really is a headcase. But don't you just love it when someone's already too messed up to fix? Makes them way more interesting than some traumatic childhood story.

Then again, I just watched the new Batman movie twice and two days. It might be my fondness for the Joker speaking. (grins) Pay no attention to me, I'm a blithering idiot. (blows kiss)

**meifly: **Here's you're next chapter, darling. Next one will be longer, promise.


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's Notes: **Dear god, I'm actually posting. It's been way, way too long since I sat down and mass produced chapters.

Maybe I'm just that desperate.

Anyway, as promised, the Schu-happy chapter, given the okay by Disco. It's always nice to have friends who don't pit a fit about borrowing general ideas. (hugs her)

I also altered the spelling from Esset to Eszet, as it is spelled in the sub of the anime. Just in case someone was about to tell me off for being inconsistent.

Right then, this one is bloody confusing, just a heads up. Enjoy.

* * *

**1985 C.E.**

* * *

So this was it. This was the big day that I was no longer working solo. Today, I would begin building my team, and through them, my reputation. Today, I would no longer be living in shit apartments and hunting down traitors, I'd get real missions.

Today, I was getting my telepath. Most kids in this country wanted a bottle of beer on their eighteenth birthday, I got a telepath. I couldn't help thinking that I was so much luckier.

There were a few others, more of my kind, leaders in training, dressed in the same black suit I wore, taking the same length of step I took, feeling the same kind of nervous excitement I felt, wondering the same things I wondered. We were told to wait in line and would be individually called in to pick our telepath, like captains picking out which kid they wanted on their kickball team. I was second in line, glad for once that my number was so high on the list.

My turn, walking forward, hiding just how excited I was.

I'd already Seen today, long ago as a child, before I'd even been able to understand the idea of questioning reality. I think I was five. I walked forward, unafraid, and they locked the door behind me, flipped a light switch.

There were two men, both looking equally half-dead, filthy, naked, bruised and in chains. I stood in front of the first, tilting his chin up, peering into his face. I could discern nothing good in his future, from what little I could pick up just by a touch. From what I could tell, there wasn't enough left of this particular man to really matter, and when I let go of his chin it flopped back down onto his chest, like a human doll. I moved to the second one, frowning.

Was this all the decision they were going to allow me? One dilapidated creature or the other? Neither one of them looked like they functioned. Still, I lifted a second chin, peered into eyes that seemed dead. This was becoming disappointing, not at all what I'd expected. Telepaths were hard to train, easy to break, these two were too messed up to be use to anyone as anything but fodder. I turned away in disgust.

"I think I'd rather just take another couple years of field work, if it's all the same. These two are useless," I spoke flatly at the window. I knew there were people there watching me, ready to see what I'd do. I was already more than sure that this was just a test, to see how desperate I was for power, to see if I'd give up quality for time. I had time, and felt slighted that they were bothering to try my loyalty.

The microphone buzzed on, a sharp noise that made me grit my teeth. "Walk forward please."

I took a step, then another, closer and closer to the door I had entered by. I stopped just in front of it, wondering if they wanted me to leave or if they were going to shoot me in the back for turning my nose up at their offering.

"Open the door please, Number 1567." The voice was even, robotic. I'd heard that voice all through my training. "And step through."

I did as ordered and blinked. This…wasn't where I'd come from. I turned just in time to see the door be drawn shut, and felt my eye twitch. It was bright in here, the light bounced off the white surfaces, the walls, the floor, until it seemed to be coming from all directions.

I moved forward. There was nothing else to do in a corridor but that, and I was half sure there was someone in my head, messing with my expectations. I seemed to cross the corridor far too quickly for this to be anything but a dream. By now I didn't have to wait for prompting to open the door. The room I entered surprised me, more white paint and tile, and a wall taken up by a picture window of the ocean, too blue to be real. I barely noticed the young man who stood off to the side, dressed in a white suit, hair bushing over his shoulders and down his back. He was smiling a smile that made my flesh crawl.

"You're Brad Crawford," he said with a voice that seemed to drip with venomous honey. I didn't move, though I felt the urge to step away as he got closer. Soon, sooner than what ought to be normal, he was a foot away, tilting his face up to smirk.

"I've heard so much about you." I placed his accent as German, perhaps Austrian.

"You were right the first time. Good guess. I suppose they don't call you Eszet's golden boy for nothing." He moved away and sat down in a chair I hadn't seen there before, motioning to me to take the seat opposing his. I didn't act, was starting to get angry. So they had been out only to trick us all along, I should've guessed.

This wasn't a reward for my good behavior, my excellent performance, my perfection; this was an interrogation.

"This is nothing of the sort. It's an introduction. Sit down before I make you," the boy snarled. I hesitated, blinked once, and found myself sitting in the indicated chair, him just looking at me.

"You drink coffee, right?" That seemed a stupid question to be asking, since he was more than able to pull that and any other information out of my head. He was a telepath, he was fucking with my head.

"It's what I do. Don't take it so personally."

"It's my head, don't for a minute think that this isn't personal." It was about as personal as it got. "Who are you?"

"I'm the collection of a lot of other people's thoughts." He didn't seem at all bothered that he sounded crazy. He poured us both coffee, mixed sugar and cream into his and sipped. "I'm bound together by the idea of someone else that I exist."

"So you're a Christian. Glad we established that."

"You get sarcastic when you're angry. Good. I like sarcasm."

"Answer my question."

"I'm me and not me. I'm a thousand different me's, I'm you and I'm half of Germany. You're going to have to be a little more specific."

"What's your name?"

"Can't remember. Oh wait…" he paused, as if it was on the edge of his tongue, then fell back into his chair, shrugging. "Lost it."

"What do they call you, then?"

"Number 3323."

I certainly couldn't call him that. I got up and searched for the door I thought I remembered. I'd had enough of this and wanted out.

"Schuldig."

"They did teach us German in training, I'm sure you know."

I heard him get up, setting the coffee cup down with a soft click.

"No, it's what they call me. My roommates used to call me that."

"Why?"

He shrugged and peered out the window. The sun seemed to be setting and the room was turning orange in the glow. The world outside looked like it was burning.

"Funny how you came here thinking you were going to get your very own telepath. Like a kid picking a dog out of the pet store window. Very cute, really. You're not so old, are you?"

"Eighteen."

"No, no, not old at all. You haven't Seen much of this, or what you had they altered."

I wouldn't be surprised if they had. He turned to smile at me again.

"So I guess this is my big chance, eh? Of getting out of here? Better not fuck it up, I guess."

"How old are you?" His eyes seemed very blue, preternaturally wide.

"Six years younger than you, twelve."

"You don't look twelve."

"I'm not, in my head. You're not really eighteen in your head. Heads aren't so good at personal image, we see ourselves as we want to be seen, just so happens we're both older. Doesn't really matter, we're only an age for a year, and you know well as anyone that time is slippery."

"And I take it that until I say I'll take you on the team, without previous knowledge of your mental instability or your scores in tests or how good a possible teammate you will be, you'll keep me here?"

He smiled wider. "That's the general idea, yeah. You can run around the halls if you want to, if you think it'll make you feel better."

"How much time has passed?"

"Not more than a second or two."

I nodded and sat back down in the chair, taking up my cup of coffee.

"And I'll bet we don't have much more than five or ten more, right?" I patted down my pockets and found a pack of cigarettes, lit one and smoked, smirking to myself at the knowledge that I wasn't smoking at all, that all this was a mindfuck. Somehow this didn't really bother me anymore, but that might've been part of it.

"Well then, might as well finish my coffee. First I've had all morning."

He flopped back down on his chair and sipped his drink.

"So tell me more about yourself, Schuldig."

It seemed like we'd spent an hour talking, but when I blinked it had only been the few seconds between a breath. Air gushed into my lungs and I unclenched my fingers from around the boy's chin, sneering down at the thin face. His hair had been shorn off in a buzz, so close to his head that he was nearly bald, and his eyes were abnormally large. But he smiled back, and it was the same smile, even through cracked lips and dirty teeth, the same sharp knowing was there.

Schuldig, man who was and who was not, in his philosophy, anyone. He didn't look broken anymore, that had been an act, put on by an expert trickster.

I already liked him.

I pointed, and one of the guards, a faceless somebody brainwashed and employed by Eszet, stepped up and unbound the shackles on the boy's arms. I already knew that chains like that were utterly pointless for such a being. I liked to believe he could've killed us all when he leaned forward and let me tug him close, wrap my coat around his frail shoulders.

"Number 3323," the robotic voice droned, announcing my choice. "Codename: Mastermind. Exit via the door to your left, his files are waiting to be picked up."

It occurred to me that his name might be in those files, but the moment I thought to look, some other thought swung in to combat it, the same mocking voice I'd been listening to for what had been the past imaginary hour;

/Don't bother. They don't know either./

* * *

_Fin chapter 16_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **The one time I forget to beg for reviews, I don't get any. Bah. (flicks everyone's noses)


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's Notes: **I have this ridiculous hobby, that when I go to someone's house, I look around and daydream it all refurnished with things I've picked up at thrift shops and antique markets, yard sales or freebies on the side of the road.

Not a stick is from Ethan Allen.

Regarding the chapter, this was a request from ScribbleSama, my beta, who's a very big fan of Nagi. She asked that there be more Nagi-centric chapters. We came up with this idea, and I'm hoping it's not terribly campy. I'll leave it up to y'all to decide. As for me, well, I have to go hold Disco's cat hostage while she looks for a hair straightener. I can't go out looking like motherfucking Shirley Temple.

* * *

**1992 C.E.**

* * *

"I'm beginning to think we adopted for real," Schuldig growled as we tore open the day's mail. He took the catalogues and handed me all the bills, muttering to himself as he flashed a letter in my face.

"Nagi's teacher wants to talk to you, it says. Something about his work being perfect and him never getting into trouble."

I took the paper and read it over with a frown. "Seems to me that those are reasons that oppose having a guardian dragged in. I'll bet they think he's cheating."

I had a grand total of five years of formal, government-funded schooling and a couple faked masters in applied science, but this had never occurred to me as a possibility when we had enrolled Nagi into school.

"Imagine that," I muttered. "A fucking PTA meeting."

Schuldig looked up at me, frowning. "What?"

"Parent-Teacher Association meeting. They used to drag my mother in to 'talk' about me starting fights on the playground in the third grade."

Schuldig snorted and picked up his catalogues, moving to the sofa.

"That's rich, you as the class bully. Better go think of what lies you're going to tell them."

"You're not getting out of this so easily, Schuldig. You're coming too."

He turned around, eyes narrowed in fury.

"You wouldn't."

I patted his head and smiled.

"Why Bethany, my darling wife, I can't imagine what you have planned that is so much more important than your own son…"

I slipped away before he could bite me.

* * *

"I don't really think either tie is better than the other, sir."

I sighed and rubbed my eyes under my glasses. When I looked up, the boy that sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed was peering at me as if I were some kind of oddity he had never seen before.

"We've been over this. You have to pick one or the other. It's about being decisive."

"Don't confuse the boy. Ties are not bullets and targets," Schuldig growled as he buttoned his shirt. "Wear the blue one, it makes you look like a moron."

Nagi looked at Schuldig, petrified. Three months living here, and he was still afraid that I might pull a gun at the slightest hint of insubordination. The way Schuldig needled me, Farfarello's cynicism of my opinions, the way I was determined to make Nagi actually decide something instead of simply being a follower, was enough to make him freeze in terror.

I had no idea what they'd done to him in training, and I was pretty sure I didn't want to know. One day I'd break him of that fear.

"At least I'm not making you wear a tie, Schuldig. Stop complaining." But I looped the blue one around my neck and reached for my suit jacket. It was hot, the middle of August in Tokyo, but I refused to go anywhere unarmed. The jacket would have to be suffered through.

"You're making me fool everyone into thinking I'm your mistress, how am I not supposed to be insulted by that?"

"You are my mistress," I replied, bewildered. There weren't exactly words in the male; at least ones that wouldn't make Schuldig rage more. I'd only barely convinced him to come, just short of threats.

He threw up his arms and marched off, muttering about how next I'd make him have a sex change. Nagi just stared, blue eyes impossibly wide. He only looked up at me when I picked up my weapon and checked the clip. I could almost smell the fear.

"Why do you put up with that, sir?" he asked, voice low. As if whispering wouldn't be picked up by Schuldig's telepathy. I had the feeling that he was convinced that Schuldig was going to screw this meeting up, shrugged it off and slid the handgun into my shoulder holster. If anything, Schuldig would probably save us a lot of effort.

"Put up with what specifically? His moods, his bitching, his noise, or his god awful fashion sense?"

"He acts out for your attention when he already has it. He is constantly overstepping his bounds as your second."

I pulled on my jacket, bent to pick up my shoes and carried them to the door. Nagi followed silently, waiting for my answer. Farfarello was reading the newspaper and barely looked up at us as we passed.

"Same reason I tried to get you to pick a tie out earlier," I replied, sitting down to tie my shoes. The boy just blinked at me.

"I don't understand."

"We're a team." I bent to reach my other shoe and tugged the laces tight. "Other teams are rife with all kinds of power struggles, with overtraining and militant attitudes. They don't see one another as anything more than stepping stones to their own advancement, or as anything more than cogs to the machine that reaches the end of their mission. There is no sense of humanity there, no sense of family."

"I never had a family."

"Neither did Schuldig, and he's turned out fairly well."

Farfarello decided to pipe in then, laughing. "Better off not having one. They fuck you up right good. Take Brad and me as examples."

Nagi peered at him, but Farfarello just turned back to his paper.

"Like what you're trying to get Schuldig to pretend we are? Make everyone believe we are?" he offered.

"No pretending, I just need Schuldig to convince a few who can't comprehend the idea."

He smiled, first time he ever had. It was a quiet thing, and he forced it down out of habit in a matter of seconds. It was like winning a prize, I only wanted more.

"I don't think Schuldig would really like being called 'Mom'."

I snorted and got to my feet, motioning the boy out the door. "But it'll make him twitch in the most amusing way."

* * *

Schuldig drove, I had long ago given up that right due to the unpredictability of my own powers. None of us had missed the irony. As the car shuffled its way through traffic, Schuldig and I were discussing what kind of family I wanted him to present.

"Why can't you be the woman this time?" Schuldig whined, pushing back into his seat.

"Why do we have to have this conversation every time?" I replied, gripping the door handle when I judged the car beside us as too close. I tensed, but kept silent. I knew my bitching about other drivers would make Schuldig even more petulant. Nagi, in the back seat, pretended to read his English textbook.

"I don't want to. Why can't we just go as we are?"

"You already know that answer, so why even ask?" I snarled as he pulled up too close to the car in front of us, inches between the bumpers. Possible futures of death in a car accident flashed behind my eyes, it wasn't helping either of us calm down.

"So you're going to make me pretend to be your whore then?" The language made me want to slap him. He picked up on that and jerked the brakes to make me flinch.

"Wife, Schuldig. Stepmother from Europe. You're acting like one, that's for sure. The speed limit is thirty, Schuldig!"

"Shut up and let me drive, Brad!"

"Would you two please be quiet?" a soft voice from the back seat interrupted. I turned, briefly taken aback at the look Nagi was giving us. It was the same look that Farfarello gave me whenever I strapped him into his straight jacket.

"So the little brat's got some backbone, eh?" Schuldig crowed, turning into a parking lot without signaling. The car behind us honked.

"I don't want to do this any more than you do," Nagi muttered, closing his book and unbuckling his seat belt. I fumbled for a cigarette as I stumbled out of the car, desperate for the life-affirming stench. Nagi's nose twisted up in disapproval, but he said nothing. I heard Schuldig's lighter flick behind me.

* * *

"You have to understand, Mr. Naoe, that in so short a period of time, it is virtually impossible to not only catch up with the rest of his class, but to surpass them." The teacher was trying to be polite in the same breath he accused Nagi of cheating. He didn't like me, didn't like what I claimed to be, a half-Asian businessman, divorced and remarried, with a son more intelligent than his teachers. Normals were so vain.

"You do have all previous records of achievement, correct?" I drawled, feinting boredom in place of annoyance. "He's been a very intelligent boy from the start, will probably be through with college before he's even eighteen. Unless, of course, a closed-minded teacher is willing to hold him back from his potential."

Such people were so easy to understand, there was no depth in their narcissism. It insulted me that he thought we were the same.

/If I convince him that there is no problem and he'll move Nagi up a class, can we go home?/ Schuldig pushed into my mind, shifting uncomfortably on the small chair. I could tell by the crease between his eyes that twisting this teacher's vision of us was wearing on him. /Won't take but a minute; we can pick dinner up on the way. Far will be so pleased he doesn't have to cook tonight./

"I don't understand why it's a problem that a boy be smarter than his tutors, after all, isn't that what we want of the next generation?" I pressed, leaning forward in my seat. "Don't we want them to be smart enough not to make our mistakes?"

"If you are implying-"

'Go ahead, Schuldig, this man is giving me a headache too,' I found myself thinking. 'And from now on I think we ought to keep our fights on a mental level, they seem to bother Nagi.'

I could hear Schuldig laughing somewhere in the back of my mind, the sensation was infectious and I fought not to smirk.

/So we get to make faces at one another over the dinner table, then? I'm sure that'll amuse Farfarello to no end. Right, done. Let's go./

The teacher was looking at us with a huge smile, standing as we stood, bowing over and over.

"I'm very sorry for this misunderstanding, Mr. Naoe. I did not realize that your son was such an excellent student. We'll put him into the correct class right away." And then he turned to Nagi, who was blinking at him, taken aback at the sudden change. "And I wish you the best of luck, young Mr. Naoe."

* * *

I lit another cigarette as Schuldig started the car, sighing inwardly and wishing we had been able to resolve things with everyday conversation. Sometimes I thought that we depended on our powers too much, and that it didn't make us any different from the Normals.

But not today. Today I reveled in it, in pushing my ideas into a person, so deep that they believed they had thought of them themselves. I liked being able to warn Schuldig away from traffic jams and car crashes. I liked not being one of the herd.

I stared out the window while Schuldig and Nagi figured out what supper would be; they picked sushi and headed for the nearest takeaway restaurant. When we stopped, I stayed outside, leaning against the restaurant's window and watched the Japanese people walking home in their uniforms and business suits. I watched them steal glances at me, appalled that I was not one of them. I watched a young woman stare at me, quirk a smile and crook her finger, inviting. I blew smoke in her face and looked away until she was gone.

Sheep, Farfarello called them; Normals, prey, slaves, tools. Bent so easily by our collective powers until they were nothing more than ants and we nothing less than gods.

/Gods with lung cancer, if you're going to keep chain smoking./ Schuldig piped in, just as I was lighting a fresh cig. Leave it to him to ruin the flavor. I frowned and shook my head, as if I could shake him out from between my ears.

'Let me think in peace for once.'

/Fine, fine, I'll let you have your ego trip alone. What do you want?/

A smile, and I flicked ash into a passing girl's hair. "Everything."

Another laugh buried in my brain. /God, you're so cliché./

* * *

_Fin Chapter 17_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Straightener located, Disco's cat lives to see another day.

**To My Readers: **

**Rori Barton****: **Received review just once. I'm an impatient person, thus there is a lot of nose-flickery that happens in my life. Anyway, very glad you enjoyed the last chapter. Hoped you liked this one just as much. Will hopefully have another one up soon, but ideas have been coming slowly.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Notes:** Cripes, I haven't posted in five months. I remember going off to (real) college, and then time seemed to slip out of my fingers. Had rather an episodic few months, and though I'm not going to divulge all the details, just know things are…getting better. No worries. School is even more enrapturing this semester than it was last, but I'll see if I can get some work here done too for y'all. Minor problem is my inability to keep an editor. Oh well. Please be kind and forgive my errors.

Sorry to keep you guys waiting. Please enjoy.

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**1995 C.E.

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**Five-thirty in the morning. I haven't slept. I'm exhausted, but something in me dreads falling asleep. I don't dream, there is nothing lying in wait to haunt me.

The fear that I'll be missing something important is a feeling I cannot shake. But there is nothing happening, nothing in the house moves, and even Tokyo is quieter than usual outside the windows of our apartment. The rooms are dark, clean, everything in its place so no one trips over it on their way to the kitchen. Farfarello gets up the most often, bumbling his way for a glass of water or flopping onto the couch to watch television until he falls back to sleep. He never did manage to switch to the present time zone.

We ignore one another as he moves about, as I sit in the dark and pretend to read. I can feel a yawn somewhere in my chest, never quite cresting into action. My eyes feel rough and dry; all I want to do is set my head down and rest a moment. Just a moment.

But do I have a moment? My time is limited. I've been counting down the days since I was old enough to understand numbers. I know the very second of my death, the what and how and whom is responsible. I start to my feet without realizing, my hands trembling at my sides. The air of the apartment is cold, and seeps through the thin fabric of my shirt. I turn toward my bedroom, pause, and alter my course.

Schuldig's room, smaller than the master suite, a place he doesn't usually occupy unless we've had a fight or he's brought home a guest. It's neat and dusty from his usual absence, and when I set my hand down on the dresser it comes away slick. I can smell the scent of disuse rising off the wood.

He's curled onto his side, back facing the door, hand under his pillow. Probably grasping a knife, but he's soundly asleep, the only sound he makes is a quiet snore, more a heavy breath than anything. The sheets are a tangle around his limbs, the thick comforter kicked off the bed and pooled on the floor nearby. He looks as if he's been dreaming, maybe other people's dreams.

I sit down on the edge of his bed and watch his face in the soft pink light that pours through his window. The neon makes his hair glow brighter in the dim, makes his skin the sick color of Pepto-Bismol. Hardly a sweet and ethereal look; I can see how he frowns even in his sleep.

It's a horrible thing to know when one will die. How one will die. It's a horrible thing to know Fate, to realize that pondering the existence of Fate with my power is paradoxical. Of course there is Fate, many, many possible Fates, lined up in some kind of insane family tree. One action leads to three possible reactions. Three, or a hundred.

Every day has been tainted by the realization that it will end. With the fear that there may not be another side to death, that we might just be the rotting corpses we leave behind, that our souls are nothing more than concepts thought up by an overdeveloped brain. I don't like thinking like this, not when I already have two philosophers in the house, one a classified psychotic and the other a person who doesn't believe he really exists. I'd been in countless discussions with both on the idea, and had never come to a logical conclusion. I'm always second-guessing my own suspicions.

Schuldig turns over in his sleep. No, he was awake, glaring sleepily up at me even as he beckoned me to lie down beside him. He's moved over, giving me room, but the bed still makes me feel cramped. He presses close to my warmth and draws a sheet over my hips, a kind gesture considering how cruelly we'd snarled at one another just six hours earlier.

"You're keeping me awake, you know." Often the case, he never could silence the voices, not in full. He seems especially tuned into me some days.

"I don't mean to. Lot on my mind."

"One thing on your mind, silenced easily enough if you didn't fight it when I try to do that for you. You have this nasty habit of punishing yourself…"

I can't hold back a soft laugh then, letting him take my glasses off and set them safely aside.

"Too much pleasure in dreading the inevitable, I suppose."

"You're going to give yourself an ulcer," he predicted flatly, too tired to be amused. He sighs and traced a soft finger over the lines of my face, sketching patterns in the dark. But for that, we don't touch, lying on our sides with a few inches between us. It was nicer this way, cooler. I sleep better when I am cold.

"Just relax; let everything go," he continued, his voice soft and rhythmic, hypnotic. "It'll be there when you wake up again. Nothing bad's going to happen tonight, so don't worry about it."

The dread was potent, but finally allowing myself to lie down, to set my head on a soft pillow, to feel a gentle hand on my cheek, was drowning it out. I was beginning to feel lighter now, more like things didn't matter for a while; I was pretty sure it was Schuldig's work. I let my eyes fall closed and breathed out a soft sigh, muscles loosening.

Somewhere outside, I could hear the birds waking. The birds celebrated the new day, unburdened by higher minds.

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_Fin Chapter 18_

_Please Review

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_**To My Reader(s): **

**Rori Barton** (Who, I noticed, is no longer going by Rori?) – Thanks. I'm glad you liked it. Sorry this chapter wasn't quite as…chipper. Perhaps there will be other lighter ones in the future.


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